Just Neko At-SUE-ME: Life lately

February 10, 2016

It’s almost mid February and already i’m feeling really great in general about all of the progress I’ve made so far this year. I’m not putting every single thing that I have to do in my life down as a ‘goal’. I’m not tracking every time I see friends. I’m not tracking how much TV I watch and blaming myself for it. I am keeping track of how much I do things that I enjoy and focusing on getting out there and making myself happy. I am keeping track of how I treat my body and what I’m giving it.

I’ve realized that before I didn’t really think about my interactions with others as much as I thought I did. I also wasn’t as nearly aware of my eating habits as I thought I was. Holy cow y’all my eating is changing for the better right now. I’ve truly been able to not partake in certain things just because they’re there simply because I can look at what I’ve eaten that day and go “nope, I’ve gotten all my nutrients. I don’t need more fiber, I’m good on protein, my carb game is strong. I’m good.”

This combined with trying to eat more intuitively (shout out to Nicole at Writes Like a Girl for introducing this to me btw!) has really woken me up to why and when and how I eat. I’m learning I really don’t care for meals. I’d rather eat a bunch of snacks (healthy snacks) throughout the day than sit down and have big meals and be full. This means that I’m never really full though, especially the work day, but I’m eating like all the time (and tracking it) so mentally I’m not ever like “omg I’m starving right now.” It’s just me FINALLY recognizing the difference between ‘hunger’ and ‘stuffing myself’ because shockingly, there is a difference!

Food isn’t the only thing going well for me because of honesty right now. I’m also finally being honest with myself, and with others, about what I want out of life. Like, career wise. It’s scary because as teachers we’re like constantly praised for all the saintly work we do and we’re so self-sacrificing blah blah. I love kids and I love my job, but I’m also realizing that I really really really love tech. I love educational technology, I love using it in instruction, and I especially love teaching kids to use it to address obvious gaps in their knowledge sets. And this makes me feel guilty because this realization is also making me feel like I’m putting myself on a path that might one day lead out of the classroom. And that’s kind of scary because even though I’ve only been teaching for 4 years now, I love my role as an educator. I first hand get to fix problems that I see and I know for a fact I have a direct impact on people’s lives. That’s crazy. But I’m trying not to get sucked up into teacher guilt and to be honest with myself about my future.

Also just recognizing all the skill sets I do have and how I don’t get to use those at work so how can I use them outside of work? That’s been really fun. I’m not one for down time and because of that I just throw myself at pretty much every project ever, this often leads to burnout so I have to be careful, but I’ve gotten really great at recognizing when I’m going overboard and when I need to practice using balance. But opening myself up to the idea of even exploring outside opportunities is really fun. For instance I FINALLY went to my first Tuesday’s Together Meetup in Houston (part of the Rising Tide Society) and it was so much fun! I definitely felt like a total newb but I also learned so much and everyone was so welcoming of little directionless me. I felt encouraged to push myself and explore more. Definitely some fuel for the fire.

Overall I’ve been killing my intentions lately. I’m focused, I’m reflective, I’m ADAPTABLE which is HUGE. Usually I’m really afraid to change something when I’m in the middle of it because I’m convinced that it’s just not working because I’m not trying hard enough, but already I changed my ideas of “staying positive” to work better for me and be more realistic and I’ve even stopped trying to cram myself into other people’s nutrition boxes. I’m doing what’s best for me and it’s a constant process and it will always be a constant process, but I’m thrilled at where i’m at right now.

This turned into more of a reflection than a catalog, but I’m okay with that!

Things I’m working on this week: eating intuitively and planning ahead, getting some reading done, blogging whenever I feel like it (get all of it out there!), and make my appointments that I need to make by the end of the month. I’ve got other tedious chore type things but that’s pretty much it. Oh, and take time for me and what I need even though I’m hellaciously busy this week (like every. single. night.)